It Only Hurts When You Cry
by silent-five
Summary: Five times Rachel cried in front of Finn and one time he cried in front of her. Prompt from finchel-prompts on tumblr!
1. ONE

**Sooo, this was brought on by a prompt from finchel-prompts on tumblr. The prompt was: five times Rachel cried in front of Finn and one time he cried in front of her. We'll see where it goes!**

* * *

><p><strong>ONE.<strong>

"Would you slow down, Rachel? You're gonna kill us!"

"Don't be silly, Finn," Rachel replied, rolling her eyes. "This is the highway. You're practically expected to speed."

Finn wasn't known for being the world's best driver (although he had improved immensely since the mailman incident), however Rachel's driving made him look like an expert. She had some major road rage issues and a tendency to speed. The only times Finn ever heard her swear were while she was driving and while they were 'being intimate', as she liked to call it.

Most of the time, she allowed Finn to take the wheel of their navy sedan (a Christmas gift from Burt, despite the fact that it was almost useless to own a car in New York) but every now and then she'd go on a mini feminist kick and demand the right to drive.

Her demands were really hard to bypass.

Every time Finn watched her fire up the ignition, his heart started hammering in his chest and he wondered if it would eventually lead to a heart attack somewhere down the line.

"Seriously, you're going like thirty clicks above the—"

Finn's worried speech was cut off by the sound of sirens, causing both of their eyes to widen comically. One glance through the rear window confirmed it—the police had picked up on Rachel's erratic driving and were now following them, indicating that they should pull over.

"How pissed off would you be if I said 'I told you so' right now?" he asked, earning a glare from his girlfriend as she manoeuvred the car to the side of the road.

Her face then shifted into a contemplative expression that made Finn kind of nervous.

"Just follow my lead," she said, biting her lip thoughtfully.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath in and then started to wail. Big, fat tears immediately began pouring from her eyes as Finn sat in the passenger's seat, frozen in awe.

A tap on the window broke him from his trance and all he could do was sit there helplessly as Rachel rolled down the window.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" asked a stern looking middle aged man in police garb.

"I'm terribly sorry, Officer!" Rachel managed between breathless sobs. "My boyfriend's mother was just admitted to the hospital and we're on our way to see her. S-she's in ICU!"

The officer raised his eyebrows and glanced at Finn, who attempted to look appropriately distressed. He knew he didn't quite pull it off like the petite drama queen beside him but the cop quickly refocused on Rachel, who had upped the decibel of her weeping in order to distract him.

"I figured I s-should drive because he would be upset about his mom b-but then I ended up freaking out more than he did," she explained. For someone who almost never lied, she was certainly quick to fabricate excuses. "I'm so _so_ sorry!"

"Alright, miss," the cop replied, now looking both uncomfortable and mildly sympathetic. "It's alright. I'll let you off with a warning as long as you let your boyfriend drive from here on out. You shouldn't be on the road in your condition."

The man gave Finn a sharp look that said 'you should have known better', to which he could only shrug sheepishly.

"And no more speeding," he admonished with an authoritative gaze.

"Of c-course, Officer. Thank you s-so much!" Rachel said, looking up at the cop with big, brown watery eyes.

No one stood a chance against that look.

The policeman patted her arm awkwardly and nodded before making his way back to the patrol car. Finn and Rachel sat in silence until he pulled ahead of them and drove off.

"That's how we do it on Broadway," Rachel said smugly, turning to look at Finn with a wide grin on her face.

He shook his head in amazement. "You are my hero."

Giggling, she held her hand up for a celebratory fist bump that Finn readily accepted.

"And don't you forget it."


	2. TWO

**TWO.**

Finn was exhausted when he finally reached the door leading to the fifth floor apartment he shared with Rachel. They had just moved in a few weeks previously and it was still all very surreal to him; living with the girl of his dreams in their own space, both of them on career paths they're passionate about. He almost couldn't believe they'd come so far, but he was incredibly glad they had. Thus far things were more or less perfect (besides the odd bit of nagging from his girlfriend, but that wasn't really anything new).

That particular evening, Finn was looking forward to flopping on the couch and watching ESPN until Rachel returned home from the diner where she had been working as a waitress for the past couple of months to fill the gaps between auditions. He could tell that she hated her job and he constantly encouraged her to look for something she'd enjoy more but that girl was stubborn as hell. She'd simply insist, with an adorably determined look on her face, that a lot of great actresses started out as waitresses. 'It's all part of the experience!' she told him over and over again. He was fairly certain she was trying to convince herself of that as much as she was trying to convince him.

He was surprised to discover, after using his key to open both locks on the door, that the lights in the kitchen and living room were on, despite the fact that neither he nor Rachel had been home since that morning.

"Rach?" he called out, confused.

Then he heard a sniffle coming from their bedroom. He followed the sound warily and found his girlfriend curled up in a ball in the middle of their bed, tear tracks running down her cheeks. Alarmed, he rushed to her side.

"Rach, baby? What happened?"

The sight of him appeared to make her more upset and she rolled away from him when he laid a hand on her back.

"I'm s-s-so sorry, Finn!" she wailed.

His stomach lurched as possible explanations for her behavior ran through his head unbidden. He tried not to dwell on any of them for too long.

"Sorry for what?" he asked gently. This time when he began to rub her back, she didn't resist.

"I… I g-got fired!" she told him after a moment of sniffling.

His eyebrows knitted together and he replied, "Why are you sorry? You hated that job."

"W-we just moved in and we n-need that money for rent and bills and now I'm just going to have to live off you like a clingy leech until I f-find another job!" she sobbed.

Finn reached down and scooped her up like she was nothing. He took her place on the bed and cradled her small body in his lap, her head finding its natural place against his shoulder. He could feel the wetness of her tears on his neck and it broke his heart.

"Shhh," he soothed. "Don't worry, baby. We've got some money saved up and you'll get another job in no time. One you actually _like_."

He rocked her back and forth as her sobs began to die down.

"My resume _is_ quite well rounded… and I do interview very well thanks to those practice questions I printed off from the internet," she reasoned, hiccuping in between sentences.

Finn couldn't help but grin at the mention of those practice questions. Rachel had recruited him to help her prepare for job interviews and their rounds of fake interviewing had quickly turned into sexy secretary/boss role-playing. The memory made him delightfully tingly.

"That's right," he agreed once he'd somewhat cleared his head to focus on the task at hand. "It'll be a piece of cake."

She sighed then and said, "I just hate that I got _fired_. You know how I loath failing at things… and I didn't even get the satisfaction of quitting that awful job."

"How'd it happen anyways?" he couldn't help but ask.

For a moment, Rachel was silent and when Finn glanced down at her, he could see her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment.

"I may have… dumped a beverage on a customer's head," she responded in a little voice, burying her face in his neck.

"On purpose?"

"Yes… he made some very tasteless comments about my so-called 'rack'. I think he deserved it, don't you?" she said, accentuating her words with a little huff.

"He's lucky all he got was a drink poured over his head," he said, kissing her temple and trying not to hulk out.

At least he'd sleep easier knowing that Rachel could definitely take care of herself. Not mention that the mental imagery of his tiny girlfriend pitching a drink on someone's head, and no doubt running off on a speech about how to properly treat women, was going to keep him chuckling for a _very_ long time.


	3. THREE

_Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing so far! I really do appreciate all the comments. And even if you don't comment, I still appreciate you! :)_

_This one is a little meh. I kinda like the other two better…_

* * *

><p><strong>THREE.<strong>

Finn cherished the rare evenings when he and Rachel were home at the same time and were simply able to kick back and relax. Between his hectic work schedule, beating the streets as a rookie with the NYPD, and her millions of auditions on top of her new job as a receptionist at a record company, they didn't see each other nearly as often as they wanted. They made an effort to spend at least one night a week together but it was a real challenge to co-ordinate at times.

Due to a mix up with his schedule however, Finn had been lucky enough to receive an unexpected day off and Rachel decided to skip an audition (which was for a musical about aliens that she was wary about to begin with) so she could spend some quality time with her boyfriend. They had decided on a quiet evening in with take-out and the TV.

Rachel had talked him into watching _Chicago_, which happened to be showing on the one movie channel they could afford. In all honesty, he didn't put up that much of a fight. Catherine Zeta-Jones was a total MILF, most of the chicks in the movie were dressed in scanty lingerie the entire time and the songs were actually pretty cool, so it definitely could have been worse.

At least she wasn't forcing him to sit through _Funny Girl_ for the eight-zillionth time; although he'd long ago worked out a strategy for dodging that bullet. It involved distracting her with kisses until she forgot what she had been so vehemently insisting upon. Nine times out of ten, it worked like a charm.

Somewhere near the middle of the movie, Finn heaved himself up from where he was spooned behind Rachel so he could use the washroom while the movie went to commercial.

"Hurry up or you'll miss Velma's big dance number," she warned. "It's coming up right after the break and I know it's your favorite!"

Somehow Finn had the sneaking suspicion that the movie network had played _Chicago_ more than once that week.

"I'll just be a sec, I promise," he told her with a lopsided grin, hunkering down to press a lingering kiss against her lips before he made his way down the hall.

When he returned a few minutes later, he was shocked to see tears running down his girlfriend's face as she stared intently at the TV screen.

"What's the matter?" he asked, kneeling on the floor beside her. "Did they cut out the dance number or something?"

He hated it when they butchered movies in order to make them short enough to be played on television.

Rachel didn't respond, she just kept staring at the screen and the tears kept on coming. Finn directed his gaze to the TV in order to see what had upset her and was met with an image of a stray dog that was looking, to put it lightly, a little worse for the wear. Melancholy classical music made the dog look that much more pathetic as it stared up into the camera with huge, sad eyes.

Oh crap.

It was one of those heartbreaking commercials that were supposed to garner sympathy and make you give all your money to animal shelters. Finn usually managed to stealthily switch channels when they came on because he knew exactly how they affected his girlfriend. Why couldn't his bladder have waited a few more minutes?

"Oh, Finn! Just look at them! Doesn't it make you want to adopt every single one of those poor, defenseless animals?"

In a slow movement that he hoped wouldn't cause Rachel more distress, he grabbed the remote and changed the channel. Unfortunately the damage had already been done and Rachel went on.

"I just don't know how people can treat another living thing with such disrespect! It makes me sick! Honestly, this sort of thing makes me want to forget about Broadway and open a massive shelter for the hundreds of stray animals here in New York with a strict policy on humane treatment for said animals," Rachel continued, her voice becoming shriller and louder.

When they first met her, people usually thought that Rachel was conceited and self-involved. She admitted herself that she was indeed both of those things, but Finn didn't think she or people with similar opinions gave her enough credit. Underneath the external layer of boasting and bossiness was one of the biggest hearts he'd ever come across. When it really mattered, Rachel was so kind and sweet and even though she was crying at that moment, he couldn't help but smile at the sincerity behind her words.

"How can you smile at a time like this, Finn Hudson?" she demanded when she noticed his expression.

"I just… I love how much you care, that's all," he replied honestly. He brought the hand not holding the remote up to brush away her tears with his thumb and she visibly softened under his touch.

"I can't help it. I simply don't _understand_ how people can treat animals with such cruelty," she said, the pitch of her voice (thankfully) lowering.

"I know, babe. I'm right there with you," he responded and lifted himself back onto the couch, sitting next to her and wrapping one huge arm around her tiny shoulders. "I guess not everyone has a heart as big as yours."

Rachel turned her head to gaze up at him with shimmering eyes.

"Thank you, Finn. You always know just what to do to make me feel better," she told him, a brave little smile gracing her face.

He shrugged as a slight blush made its way up his neck.

"It _is_ sort of my job, seeing as I'm your boyfriend and all," he said in a nonchalant tone.

"Well, since you're doing such stellar work, I feel it is _my_ job to reward you."

One of Finn's eyebrows quirked up with interest; Rachel had a knack for giving very satisfying rewards.

"Oh yeah?" he said, playing along. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

With one dainty hand she eased him back so he was reclining on the couch and she then proceeded to crawl over onto his lap.

"You'll just have to wait a see," she replied, bringing her hands down to the hem of his t-shirt and slowly inching it up. "But I can pretty much guarantee you'll like it."

And just like that, the trauma brought on by the commercial was lost in a blissful haze of tangling tongues and interlocking limbs.


End file.
